; and to write to Almaden to have the
greatest possible number taken from there and sent.]

"Item. You will entreat their Highnesses very humbly on my part, to
consider Villacorta as speedily recommended to them, who, as their
Highnesses know, has rendered great service in this business, and
with a very good will, and as I know him, he is a diligent person
and very devoted to their service: it will be a favour to me if he
is given some confidential charge for which he is fitted, and where
he can show his desire to serve them and his diligence: and this you
will obtain in such a way that Villacorta may know by the result,
that what he has done for me when I needed him profits him in this
manner.

["It will be done thus.]

"Item. That the said Mosen Pedro and Gaspar and Beltran and others
who have remained here gave up the captainship of caravels, which
have now returned, and are not receiving wages: but because they are
persons who must be employed in important matters and of confidence,
their compensation, which must be different from the others, has not
been determined. You will entreat their Highnesses on my part to
determine what is to be given them each year, or by the month,
according to their service.

"Done in the city of Isabella, January 30, 1494.

["This has already been replied to above, but as it is stated
in the said item that they enjoy their salary, from the present
time their Highnesses order that their wages shall be paid to
all of them from the time they left their captainships."]

This document is worth studying, written as it was in circumstances that
at one moment looked desperate and at another were all hope. Columbus
was struggling manfully with difficulties that were already beginning to
be too much for him. The Man from Genoa, with his guiding star of faith
in some shore beyond the mist and radiance of the West--see into what
strange places and to what strange occupations this star has led him!
The blue visionary eyes, given to seeing things immediately beyond the
present horizon, must fix themselves on accounts and requisitions, on the
needs of idle, aristocratic, grumbling Spaniards; must fix themselves
also on that blank void in the bellies of his returning ships, where the
gold ought to have been. The letter has its practical